The man gaped, confusion and disbelief warring on his face. "That’s...insane!" He sputtered, his voice rising. "You don’t even know where we are, how many of us there are! You can’t just—"
His protest died as Mika’s gaze darkened, and he muttered under his breath once again.
[Dharmavitra, the Thousand Limbed Warden of Judgment]
The air quaked, reality itself buckling, and before the man’s eyes, a faint shimmer came into existence. It grew, solidifying with agonizing slowness, its form unfurling into something monstrous.
A dharma idol, towering and grotesque, emerged, cross, legged, floating, its purple skin gleaming like oil under the warehouse’s flickering lights. Six arms sprouted from its back, their sharp nails glinting, writhing like serpents, while two arms in front clasped in a praying position.
Its face was also a nightmare, jagged teeth bared in a silent snarl, eyes closed, exuding a primal terror that clawed at the man’s sanity. It was an asura, a myth ripped from Buddhist lore, summoned by Mika’s will, its presence a weight that crushed the air from his lungs.
The man didn’t even get to catch his breath as immidietly after it was formed, the idol drifted toward him, its cross-legged form gliding with an eerie grace.
It floated to him all the way until it stopped inches from his face, its bulk filling his vision, its closed eyes a promise of horrors yet to come.
The man’s heart hammered, his bound limbs trembling as the idol’s praying hands suddenly parted, their movements slow and careful, like a priest preparing a sacrifice.
The fingers, long and clawed then reached for his head, curling around his skull with a grip that was both cold and searing, pinning him in place.
He tried to scream in response, but his voice choked off as the idol’s yellow eyes snapped open, glowing like molten suns, piercing his soul with a gaze that saw through flesh and bone.
Instantly, a searing agony erupted in his mind, as if a thousand needles were burrowing through his brain. The idol’s power invaded him, tendrils of alien will slithering through his memories, ripping them open with brutal precision.
He felt it, every secret, every thought, every moment of his life laid bare. The cult’s hideouts flashed before his eyes: a decrepit manor in the mountains, a network of tunnels beneath the city, a fortified compound overseas.
Faces of his comrades surged forth, grunts, enforcers, the S-rank leader’s cruel sneer. Plans also unfolded: coded messages, smuggling routes, the ritual they’d planned for Charlotte, a sacrifice to awaken some ancient horror.
And all the while this happened, the pain was unbearable, his veins throbbing, his skull pulsing as if it would split, but he couldn’t scream, couldn’t blink, paralyzed by the idol’s relentless probe. His mind was a book, and the idol was tearing out its pages, leaving him raw and violated.
After what seemed to be an eternity compressed into seconds, the idol withdrew, it’s hands returning to their praying stance, its eyes closing with a soft click, while the man gasped, his body shuddering, tears streaming down his face, his breath ragged and broken.
He thought it was over, that Mika had summoned this abomination to torture him, to extract his secrets through pain.
But something stirred.
The idol didn’t move. Not in any way a body should. Behind it, the six arms that had been still as statues began to twitch. A single shudder, like a breath, and then another. The six arms split. Six became twelve. Then twenty-four. Then forty-eight.
They grew. They multiplied. They writhed.
What emerged behind the idol was no longer limbs, it was a forest of motion, a grotesque bloom of purple flesh and glistening claws. Arms layered atop arms, weaving in and out of each other, tips flicking and coiling like snakes. The air itself trembled with the unnatural rhythm of their movement.
And then, the world tore open.
Portals bloomed across the warehouse floor and walls, jagged holes punched into reality, each one swirling with black and violet energy. They pulsed like wounds, humming with the same wrongness as the idol.
The arms reached into them, one by one.
The man could only watch.
Each arm darted forward with unnatural precision, plunging through the void, disappearing into the unknown. Then, they began to return. Not empty-handed.
Cult members, dozens, then scores were yanked into the warehouse, each gripped by a monstrous hand around their neck. Their faces were masks of shock and terror, their screams swallowed by the cavernous echo.
Low level members in tattered robes, enforcers with bloodied knuckles, A-tier blessed like him with crackling mana, all were hauled in, their powers useless against the idol’s grasp.
The man’s heart stopped as he saw a B-tier pyrokinetic, her flames snuffed out mid, spark, her eyes wide with disbelief. Then an C-tier telepath, his mind, shields shattered, writhing in the idol’s grip.
It didn’t stop as another, B-tier blessed, a cloaked assassin, whose blades could cut through steel, thrashed helplessly, his daggers clattering to the floor. Then the cult’s second, in, command, a A-tier necromancer, his skeletal summons crumbling as he was dragged through, his screams high and piercing.
The man’s horror peaked as the final portal flared, and the cult’s leader, an S-tier blessed, an old man whose power had toppled regimes, was pulled into the warehouse.
His gaunt face was twisted in rage, his hands clawing at the arm that held him, his mana surging in a futile storm that fizzled against the idol’s grip. The leader’s eyes then met the man’s, a fleeting moment of shared terror, before he was hoisted higher, his screams joining the cacophony.
The warehouse was a writhing mass of captives, every member of the cult, from the lowliest thug to the untouchable S-tier blessed, suspended by the idol’s countless arms. Their struggles were futile, their powers nullified, their faces a gallery of horror.
The man realized then with a sinking dread, that Mika hadn’t lied. He’d summoned this abomination to eradicate the cult in one fell swoop, not through battle but through an act of divine judgment.